The internet has come a long way since it went public in 1993. From being a shiny new invention that provided a small portal to the rest of the world, it has now become a ubiquitous and robust piece of technology that anyone can access. 

While its evolution may have upgraded life as we know it in many ways, the internet also has its dark side. And as these people on Reddit have revealed in a recent thread, it can lead to a scary encounter that may leave a lasting, unpleasant memory. 

These anecdotes range from holding a company website hostage to stalking incidents in real life. If you’ve experienced anything similar, feel free to share it in the comment boxes below. 

#1

When my online bank account got hacked. In just a seconds, everything was gone, my savings, my peace of mind, all wiped out before I could even react.

Image credits: urasianbella

#2

Scariest thing was when I worked in government and pulled a system that helps track people down (i worked in tax). They knew more about me then I knew about me. Girl I made out with back in 10th grade? Yep she was listed as knowing me.

Image credits: Ok-Ad-9820

#3

Seeing my father who disappeared years prior on Omegle, while I was at a sleepover when I was a teen.

Image credits: shoom__

#4

I was ACTIVELY stalked by a guy on all imaginable social media when I was 18, at some point I even thought he would show up at my door and k**l me.

He would make random people (girls too) message me and tell that he’s around my area and that I must meet up with him immediately if I don’t want any trouble. I had to delete all my socials and become a literal recluse to escape his a*s.

Image credits: pubic_hair_cake

#5

I clicked the phishing email at work years ago…my heavens. What a nightmare that was.

Nothing happened. It was bait. Had to sit through a 60 minute video.

Image credits: creek_water_

#6

When I was a kid, early 90’s, went into a chatroom for psychics, a friend and I pretended to be psychic and messed with people. Someone messaged me later putting a curse on me…

Image credits: 1useforaname

#7

This was AOL instant messenger, around 1999 or 2000. I accepted a message request from someone whose screen name I didn’t recognize. I opened the message and the message read that In 10 seconds, my computer was going to get hijacked. Around 10 seconds later, the hard disk drive lit and was making all kinds of noise. I panicked, turned off and unplugged everything. I turned the computer back on later and everything seemed fine.

Image credits: ay1mao

#8

Back in the day I had a stalker that would follow me on different social media and would make new aim accounts whenever I blocked her. We never met in person except in passing. When I was in marching band she’d be in the stands and shout my name to try to get my attention. She kept stalking me until I was like 23.

Image credits: SemiHemiDemiDumb

#9

It’s not scary now but at the time it was. I was 9 maybe and was super into Animal Jam. This girl and I became friends through it, but then she found my YouTube channel and lowkey started internet stalking me (my username in both places was the same). Then one day I logged onto Animal Jam and she was acting all sad, said she was “quitting life,” and then logged out and never logged on again for the few years I continued playing.

Image credits: guildedpasserby

#10

I commented on a cars thread and said something was mid trim level and the guy went off on me. Saying how I could never afford an $110k car and how I should stay in the kitchen where I belonged. He took it a step forward a couple hours later and said that I shouldn’t be talking about cars and things I didn’t know about and how I should be watching my two children (he named their names). He then messaged me a street view of my house.
Went to the cops, started a case, got a restraining order against him.

Image credits: kkleigh90

#11

I once was messing around in audacity and was singing and listening back and while I was I heard in tts “nice singing f*****” I have never yanked a ethernet cable out so fast. Completely wiped that pc.

Image credits: Lenalov3ly

#12

Getting doxxed over Minecraft.

Image credits: Toru4

#13

Unfiltered internet access as a kid led a grown man I did not know coming to find me. I did not give him my address, but he showed up to the house next door and asked for me by my full f*****g name. They did not redirect him to my house, but told my parents the next day and I got in big trouble. Glad I got in trouble instead of getting taken. I was like, 12 or 13.

Image credits: peachysdollies

#14

Got sent the “anne.jpg” link at 2pm and I opened it. I had my headphones on at a high volume setting, my browser was full screen, and it was pitch black. It was the worst jumpscare of my life, and the only one that physically made me feel sick.

For those who don’t know what it is, it’s just the “jeff the k**ler” image flashing rapidly on full screen while blasting an extremely loud, constant scream sound effect. Not too bad if you expect it, but out of nowhere, coupled with the sound effect it scared the living s**t out of me. The link itself doesn’t exist anymore but the picture has become infamous since.

Image credits: koszevett

#15

I found out after my father died he had been using photos and information about my life to catfish young lesbian women online to get naked photos of them. I had to go through his fake facebook account he set up using all my real information and contact every single friend listed and explain what happened. Then they got mad at me I had them using the info he had given to find my business and turn up in my store mad at me for lying to them.

Image credits: wwaxwork

#16

It wasn’t a situation that ever put me in any danger, but a few years back I was watching a streamer on Twitch and he got swatted. He was a cooking streamer, just chatting with us while he made tacos. Suddenly he was saying that he could see there were a ton of cop cars outside and he walked off camera with his hands up. Camera stayed on and we got to watch cops in tactical gear walk through his kitchen while clearing the house. Thankfully it ended as well as it could, his wife and kids weren’t home at the time and nobody was trigger-happy enough to shoot his dogs (or him). But it was definitely nerve wracking for a while, sitting there wondering if we were going to hear gunshots.

He told us later that according to the cops, someone had called in saying there was a hostage situation at his house. It was literally just him and his dogs and he was making tacos! Who the f**k swats someone who’s just showing people how to make tacos?

#17

Found at a girl states away from where i used to live had been taking photos from my buddy and i’s social medias and pretending to be our friends for over 2 years, photoshopping herself into photos, making fake inside jokes, talking about memories with us that never happened , i never knew this girl and neither did my friend , we only found out when one the girls this crazy lady knew in real life hit me up on instagram and sent me screenshots. every single account i had (and my friends) she had blocked, even the accounts that didn’t have my name attached to them. last i heard she wished me a happy birthday about 2 years ago using photos that were taken of me in the place i currently live.

#18

When I was 15, my friends and I went into the deep web and downloaded some PDFs and videos about Python programming, and another b******t things that I can’t remember

The files were all empty

The next day, my friend (we were using his computer) said his entire workspace had been deleted

Three days later, he told us at school that everything on his computer came back

And on his desktop wallpaper, there was a message:

“We checked your whole computer. You seem like a nice guy, just trying to learn Python. Here’s the material. Be more careful when using the dark web”

And all the missing files were placed on his desktop

#19

I used to work online for a social media site.

We were popular enough in our prime that we attracted the attention of a hacking collective.

They held the site hostage for money, they wanted to be paid a “consulting fee” of several thousand dollars to go away and stop taking the site down, f*****g with our users, and performing all sorts of hacks to scrape personal information. They insisted that other sites (IMVU was the example given) had paid their fee in order to be left alone.

One of them reached out to me and threatened me by revealing several pieces of my personal information and claiming they had much more, including my bank account information.

We couldn’t pay them, that’s the thing they didn’t realize, we literally didn’t have the amount they were asking for. The site was being poorly managed and was on its last legs.

I saw the site going under slowly and wanted out, I was under a lot of stress, I was being contacted by people who I assumed to be dangerous. My boss was up my a*s about stuff, so I just walked away – best decision I ever made.

#20

I had inadvertently left my zoom room open (and minimized) after checking some settings. Imagine my alarm when I heard my male coworker say “hey what’s up” when he arrived 5 minutes earlier for a zoom meeting… and I was pumping breast milk!
(Not the kind of scary you were talking about, I’m sure… but it sure freaked me out!)
Thankfully my camera angle was such that he didn’t see anything scarring. When he asked “is that a 3D printer I hear running?” I said No and changed the subject.

#21

Out of the blue someone on steam messaged me, “hi [insert full real name].” And a story how he took his time to link a whole bunch of random information and match my interests (steam, reddit, other forums) to figure out who I was, where I was from, what I did. This took him weeks apparently. Why? Just to tell me how easy it was to track someone down. .

#22

I was 15, year is 1997, met an English guy in online chat (AIM) who was 19. Lied that I was 16. Chatted for months, def got sexual. I was going to England for the summer to stay with family. Told one Auntie I was going to visit another and vice versa and took a train to meet up with him and go to a 3 day festival in a field somewhere. Told no one my plan. Had fun at the festival, went to another with him a few weeks later and decided I hated him by the end of it. Missed the last train to an Auntie’s house late one night and had to call a cousin nearby to come pick me up. She blabbed and it all came crashing down and I was grounded for the rest of the summer after that.

Here’s the thing, I had no idea this was scary at the time! I thought it was a great idea! How fun to meet a foreign boy who already “loves” me!

Now I think back on it, I can NOT believe how stupid I was. I also can not believe how lucky I am that he turned out to actually be a slightly dorky 19 year old boy and not some old, gross, creepy, p**o rapist! I am so lucky that the worst that happened was I smoked some s****y weed in a damp field next to an overflowing port-a-loo.

I tell this story to all my friends with kids because my parents had literally no idea I was talking to guys online or that I was going to do this, and they had no way of stopping it from happening, which is terrifying.

#23

I did this to myself by accident when I was in high school. I made a shower video to my bf at the time and it showed EVERYTHING. I tried to send it to him, but the steam and condensation that was on my phone made me miss click and it sent to my public story. I don’t know if y’all ever had your phone with you in the shower, but the condensation makes it annoying to try and click on things without miss click. I didn’t know until my mom ran upstairs and yelled at me pretty bad. I looked at my phone and it blew up. Friends from school, KIDS from my dance class and family were texting me all worried. Random people saving it and screenshotting it. I obviously deleted it, but that didn’t stop the video going around part of my grade and now I’m afraid to bring my phone into the shower. Afraid to have my phone anywhere near the shower. I cringe while I shower thinking about that stupid moment.

#24

I used to be Admin of Minecraft server. Owner owned a HUGE ddosing site. It’s shutdown by FBI already. But when I left the server and resigned as an Admin. The owner got all my personal info and was mailing home threats to me. He also ddos’ed me offline for 3 months straight.

I didn’t believe this was about me until I was recently reminiscing about high school. He has threatened to call in a fake bomb threat to my high school. In that same time, our school shutdown due to a bomb threat. I have a feeling it was about me, but I never got in trouble about it or anything.. Nothing happened since.

#25

My husband’s ex-girlfriend managed to use my phone’s location services to stalk me when we first started dating.

She went to the 3 locations I posted most from – my house, my job as house coordinator for a neurodivergent young man with paranoid schizophrenia, and my mom’s house.

I get sick to this day thinking about how close she came to finding my client’s house – you had to know exactly which hidden road to turn – and what she would’ve done. His doctors speculated that if he went into catatonia, he would not ever be coming back. She could have literally scared him to death (which the state mental hospital would’ve been for him. And us! That’s our boy!).

I say this because she tried breaking into my mother’s house next and got my mom put on a psych hold bc my mom had just taken her Ambien when she heard her, and by the time the cops showed up my poor mom was out of her mind with fear, so they took her to the hospital. I had to beg them to release her to me.

And then finally, she came back, broke into my car, trashed it, and that’s what she needed to move on, I guess.

I absolutely do not play with location services. Turn that s**t off.

ETA: how’d we know it was her? D*****t left HER location services on, plus she was still on my husband’s plan when we met, so we pulled it up and yep, she hit all 3 :/

There’s a good chance she’s on Reddit so just in case: it’s still on sight, b***h.

#26

I am a University professor. I met someone off of here and we hit it off pretty quickly. She seemed a little too eager for the wrong reasons, so I tried to end things. I never gave her any of my personal information.

She showed up at my lecture.

#27

I was playing a game on xbox and there were a bunch of kids in the lobby being obnoxious as f**k and i said something to my wife on the couch next to me along the lines ‘heez the kids in this lobby are annoying as f**k’ and of them just started listing of my full name, address, my work address, license plate number and saying ‘i should be nicer if i knew what was good for me’ this all happened within like 15 seconds. I just turned off the xbox after that. My gamer tag was also linked to a burner email with no discernable information on the tag or email.

#28

WannaCry.

Lost all my data. All my self-made music, all photos of activities with friends and family of over 10 years. All my uni stuff, including my thesis.

I was too naive back then and watched a bunch of TV shows online (mostly because I wanted them in English, not the shoddy German dubs), and used various sites for that with way too little protection. Did this for years, and then one day, one of the d**n ads they showed immediately hit me with WannaCry. I took ~5-10s to realize what happened and yank the cord, but it was too late.

I was fairly certain that I had burned some of that stuff on some CDs at one point, but wasn’t able to find anything.

One day, after I moved I finally took a weekend to sift through the *hundreds* of CDs I amassed through the years to finally clean them out. Most weren’t even in a case, just stacked raw and in a box. When I had yet another stack of ~30 in my hands, inspecting for labeling and looking on the underside if anything was written on it, there was this one completely unlabeled one, filled roughly 3/4. *Something* in me told me to slide it in to check, and I cried for probably half an hour. It was almost ALL my photos and music I’ve been missing for years! That was honestly one of the happiest days of my life. Found my uni stuff as well in that box.

I now have two NAS each with mirroring storage and the NASs mirroring each other, as well as a third copy on my PC, and a USB drive I should probably update soon.

**Make backups, people!**.

#29

Replied to someone who messaged me on a dating app. This app allowed messaging without a match. I basically responded with a generic friendly reply and he demanded my contact info. I said I don’t give that out for my safety, I communicate on here, and he FLIPPED. Started sending me screenshots of my social profiles (which were not listed on the app) as well as home address. Then messaged me on Facebook saying I was stupid to think I could prevent him from finding what he wanted to track me down, then a maps screenshot of my home..

At this point my sister googled the name he had stupidly provided me by messaging on Facebook, and he turned out to be a convicted r**ist who had failed to report his new address. I called the cops and they somehow tracked him down and arrested him. All this because I just made the mistake of responding hello. It’s so great being a woman!

#30

When YouTube first came out my friend and I watched a video of 2 guys doing a drive by shooting. We were like holding each other crying. We watch someone die online.

#31

When I was about 20 or 21 I started to come to terms with my sexuality and decided to try out a gay dating/hookup website (early days of online dating – I’m old). It was location based so all the people I was chatting with were in my home area. I had a few conversations that didn’t really go anywhere, then got chatting to an older guy who said he liked my pictures and flirted with me for a while. Eventually he asked if I’d be interested in meeting up and I said maybe. He asked what I was into and then said he’d like to show me what he wanted to do to me and sent me some images.

The pictures were scans of a hand-drawn comic of sorts depicting young men being physically and sexually tortured, dismembered and m******d. I freaked the hell out, logged off and deleted my account and then spent days not sleeping thinking about the fact that some guy living nearby, who knew what I looked like, wanted to do that to me. Eventually I told myself that it was not likely the guy seriously thought he was going to find a willing partner for what was shown in the pictures, and more likely he was just trying to be an a*****e and freak me out on purpose, but it still disturbed me for a long time.

#32

On my neighborhood’s social media account, I posted a video of a person knocking at my door at 3am and acting strange. All I did was ask if they came to anybody else’s house and what they might have wanted, because I slept through the whole thing. Then this guy, who lives down the street and who I never met in my life, wrote all of these angry, hateful replies to my post, criticizing me with long lectures for not opening my door for the stranger despite my being asleep, stirring up a huge amount of hate toward me, telling other people in the replies he himself had a gun, and then he DMed me with his address and number and told me to come over and meet him in person. I told him to never contact me again and wrote nothing else. Then he found my work email and LinkedIn account and started sending me messages with his number and address, asking me to meet with him. I called my friend over because I was shaking in terror. He definitely knew where I lived based on the video. I thought about calling the police, but I ignored him and he stopped. I immediately deleted my social media account. All I did was post a video asking who the person at my door could have been. Never doing it again.

#33

Back in the early 00’s I was running windows XP and zone alarm security suite which was a firewall/traffic monitor. I had an external HDD with everything on it. Music, personal information, banking stuff, home pictures and video…. It was my catch all.

Anyways, one day I’m chilling there and I notice my out traffic spike through the roof. I wasn’t doing anything to trigger that and I panicked. Started digging in and couldn’t find which program was causing it. Disabled my Ethernet port and it instantly stopped. Plugged it back in and within a minute it came back. Unplugged my external drive and it stopped again. Took my computer offline for several hours while I dug in. I had a Trojan backdoor virus which was dumping all of my data from my E:. I don’t know what or how much they got before I interrupted it but I reformatted and put up additional safe guards after that. Thank God I had ZA installed or I would have never even known.

I would like to add that I had a very reputable Anti-Virus installed with updated definitions, not Mcafee or Norton. As well as Spybot S&D. Don’t know when or how I got infected with the TH.

#34

Back when I was about 19 or 20–circa 2005– I saw a documentary on CNN about child trafficking. They were specifically in Romania, following the street kids caught up in the life of that. So one man an old butt man in his 50s came for “s*x tourism” to get this 14 year old boy. And I noticed whomever he set it up with they used Yahoo messenger.

This was in the early, wild west days of chat rooms.

I was like b******t, you can’t do just do that. So I hopped onto to my computer found what looked like the chat the man was in and said “I’m looking for a boy”

Literally FIFTY different windows opened up. What do you want? Age, country or origin? Blonde, brunetts, etc. SCARED THE RAVING HELL OUT OF ME. I completely uninstalled Yahoo Messenger and switched to AIM.

Spent about a month scared to death that the police were gonna kick my parents door in because my dumb a*s was curious and looked into some s**t I should have never and left it alone.

I never thought it was real, or that frighteningly easy to do something like that. I was and still am horrified. And I feel sorry for any and all kids caught up in this terrible terrible crime against them.

It was over 20 years ago, but it still haunts me.

#35

Probably Facebook market place. I was selling a computer on Facebook marketplace place and I scheduled a meetup with someone to sell the computer. The meet up happened at 8pm and when I went to the meetup location, it was in the back of a truck depot that looked a little empty. I got sketchy vibes but im thinking nothing bad is going to happen. I stayed in my car and messaged the guy that I was here to sell the computer. He said ok give me 5 minutes. I hopped out of my car and started walking around and I saw this dirty white van (like it had a mud white color to it). I was facing the front of the van and the engine turned on and my instinct kicked in to get out of there immediately. So I started walking back to my car, and this van was following me. Hopped in my car and drove off and the van followed me for about 6 or 7 miles before I lost it on the freeway. I went back to Facebook messenger and the guy had blocked me or deleted his profile. I started to conceal carry from that point going forward after that experience.

#36

I got doxxed on 4chan for posting a pic I took with metadata – nothing crazy, just something ghostly looking in the window reflection that I thought I’d share on the paranormal board. Someone posted my full name and address and my friend basically went through and commented on every thread til it fell off, but I never went back cause nooo thanks.

#37

… I am kind of afraid to say much, but let’s say, a few years ago I had a profile somewhere, and the profile could be translated as ‘Lord God’ (it was a joke profile). I wasn’t using it often, but sometimes, I was receiving strange messages from some dude. He was obviously not okay. He was like … blah blah, today I did this or that, then ended it with some odd nonsense, and so on. I would say a troll, but I had some rough period, and didn’t visit the profile for over 8 months. That dude had been sending me messages almost every second day, sometimes even 2-3 daily. Some of them were oddly deep, or I would say quite elaborated and philosophical, and often very, very religious(of course).

I felt bad, since I was ignoring him… which was quite a religious experience itself… and I went through some messages (there were hundreds of them, and I checked a few, more curious whether this dude was okay mentally). He had some… well… let’s say ‘strange liking’ to his niece, he admitted it, asked for an advice, and so on. Keep in mind, at that time, that message was over 5 months old. He was hinting how she is often with him alone, and… yeah… He had never said anything specific. He was more or less conflicted about it. I checked his profile… he had pictures of some young girl there. Some later messages were quite odd, I would say ‘delusional’. I remember only that he was mentioning demons and such. I sent some screenshots and reported the profile. Then, I somewhat panicked and decided to delete my profile as fast as possible. Therefore I do not know whether I received the response or anything.

It was scary much, much later, considering how many messages (and emails on the address, which you received automatically with the profile )I ignored. I was thinking, maybe one of those messages or emails was talking about something much darker… that s**t still haunts me.

#38

This was back in 2013, when Omegle was super big. I was a middle schooler with essentially no friends, and was going through puberty with super low self esteem. I was 12.

Met a guy online. He was “15.” He talked me into sending pictures of myself. I knew it was stupid as I was doing it, but for whatever dumb reason I fought the instinct that said it was a bad idea and sent it anyways. He immediately saved it and sent it back to me, told me he wanted a pic of down there as well, or he’d post it online.

I got scared and told him no. He posted the pic and my kik username online. I had dozens of messages in literally minutes, no one cared I was a child, no one wanted to help me take it down. Thank f**k it didn’t have my face in it. I told him he was a piece of s**t, this was illegal, and I was deleting the account. He promised to find me again and ruin my life.

One month later I discovered the Amanda Todd story. If you don’t know that case, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s VERY similar to what happened to me. I spent the next 3 years in peak fear that my life was going to be ruined over it. I finally told someone what happened at 15, but I never did take it to the police. I was too ashamed of my parents finding out.

I hope that sick f**k out there got caught.

#39

Years ago on a different reddit account I posted in a sub asking about a copy of a book I was looking to buy and I had someone reply to me with my full first and last name and email address with the caption “this you?” I still have no idea how they found that info based on what was on my account or why they did it. The mods deleted the comment pretty fast, but it was extremely unnerving.

#40

When I was a kid I was changing and my webcam light was on, didn’t notice until a window popped up saying “I see you”.

Sounds like a lie but it happened and was freaky. Never leave cams plugged in anymore or torrent/download sketchy s**t.

#41

In my time I was talking to a stranger on Facebook and one time I opened up too much to a person and he started harassing me so that I would send him a PHOTO of nudity or I would tell my family that I was gay, at that time it was my biggest fear, but one day my mom read the conversation because I fell asleep with my cell phone on in the living room and the messages were coming, she woke me up and we talked and it turns out that the harasser was a neighbor of ours. I came out of the closet and no one did anything to me, my fear was only in my head.

#42

I had a stalker back on aim. He’d pop up with harassment, get blocked, make new screen names to bother me with, get blocked more, give up for a while, and start over.

Something like a year later I was playing final fantasy 11, an mmo, when someone joined our guild. I didn’t really pay attention because I wasn’t super into leveling, mostly I dicked around and did the crafting, but this person always offered to help level. For no reason I simply didn’t care for this person, so I stayed away. This went on for literally an entire year before finally I needed help with some quest, and dude invited himself to help. Whatever. Fine.

Things were pretty normal until I picked up a couple weird things, they knew a little too much about me,were a little too interested in me, kept trying to get me to admit i didn’t hate them. I was like… well I don’t know you, so I guess not.

And they dropped the bomb. They were my stalker.

They spent a stupid amount of time going through my aim conversations finding clues about what my screen name and server i was on, and what my guild was. Made a character on that server. Leveled it up. Joined my guild. Made themselves indispensable to said guild. All to lure me in to eventually being in a party with them so they could finally get me to admit that I don’t hate them.

Their reasoning was that they had apologized for their past behavior so I was required to forgive them, and since I interacted with them without knowing who they were and didn’t immediately hate them, I must accept their apologies, forgive their behavior, and be their best friend.

I was not pleased. I wound up leaving that guild and eventually the game over it, especially when my a*s guild took his side because “he did apologize” (and was higher level than I was).

#43

I was chatting with a woman online and things had been getting pretty risque.

One day I logged in at our usual time and she was already online.

We started chatting about stuff and suddenly she was just going for the s*x talk. It seemed really odd.

It was right at that moment I realized that I wasn’t chatting with her, but her fifteen year old daughter.

I immediately logged off and sent her an email.

Yeah, she was still at work and hadn’t had time to let me know.

I told her what happened, which was really nothing, but it could have been very wrong.

#44

Back out ’97 I was on a wrestling board and posted that I was going to an ECW show near me. This guy kept replying with a million questions on the venue, the show, the talent – anything. I tried to keep up and he said something like “You convinced me to go. I’ll bring my kids.” I’m like “good for you” and didn’t give it much thought.

The day of the event hits and I’m walking up with my group, The ECW crowd isn’t exactly family friendly and there’s a big line to get in for the GA seats. It was fine and we’re all just happy to be there when I hear this voice calling my name. I look up and it’s the guy at the front of the line making a “come up” motion.

#45

I’m an admin of a local Facebook group. I deleted someone’s post and he went batshit crazy on me. Because it’s a local (small rural community) group there was a good chance he knew where I worked and possibly even where I lived. He threatened me and my daughter… all because I deleted his facebook post.

I called the police and they said they can’t do anything unless he actually does something. They said he probably wouldn’t and indeed he didn’t. I found others who know him and apparently he threatens people a lot but does nothing. I assume he’s a drinker.

#46

During Covid I had to teach my classes over Zoom. One class was an astronomy lab class over the summer. Even though we would not be meeting at the observatory and using the telescopes the university still scheduled the class for the regular time, 9 p.m. to 11:50 p.m.

I went over the lab and the simulation they were assigned, answered questions, then said goodnight at around 10:30 p.m. I stopped sharing the screen, the students logged off, but for some reason I forgot to end Zoom.

About an hour later I hear “Hello, is anyone there?” I thought it was someone in my backyard talking through the window screen (it was summer, so the widows were open at night). I didn’t know what was going on and quietly got out of bed in the dark to see who it was out there. Meanwhile I kept hearing “Hello, is anyone there?”

I could not see anything in the backyard except some feral cats that I fed, and they weren’t freaked out, which I’m sure they would have been is someone was in the backyard.

Finally the voice said “Professor [my name], are you there”. It took me a few seconds but I realized Zoom was still going and the voice was coming from someone probably miles away. Turned out it was a student who missed the Zoom session because they had to work late. Zoom normally shuts down on its own due to inactivity but I guess it had not reached the time limit yet,.

#47

I remember chatting to a guy, and it never went beyond friends well thats what I thought. We shared common interests and values I believed. I then needed to focus on school, so my time online was limited. He would message me 100 times until I replied. Eventually, I told him that I couldn’t continue, and I blocked him. A week later, I’m at my moms school and the secretary tells me there’s a call for me. It was him. I have never been so scared in my life. The school put a stop to him calling there, but I still felt like I was being watched. I changed my phone number 3 times because he found them. It’s been 6 months, and I haven’t heard a word. Never again.

#48

Uh.. the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me online was being groomed by a 22-year-old woman lmao.. i was 17.. i think i way too young to understand what was happening. it started off like a friendship. she was kind to me, gave me attention i wasn’t getting elsewhere, and slowly made me feel like i could trust her more than anyone else. but over time, the way she talked to me changed. it got sexual. manipulative as hell and confusing. she made me feel like i wanted it, like i was mature enough to handle it. like it was love. and i believed her (I HATE MYSELF T_T).

#49

Somebody I had been talking to for a few weeks ghosted me out of the blue; I admit I got kind of stupid about it and assumed something bad must’ve happened so I googled her name. Wasn’t expecting the first result to be her mugshot.

Thankfully turned out to not actually be scary; she’d gotten caught trying to grow weed in her house. But still, initially when I saw the mugshot I was a little scared.

#50

When I was 14 I was groomed online by someone much older who I stupidly gave my password to for a game, which happened to be my password for a few things. He used that to blackmail me too into doing weird sexual stuff with him. I was also s******l at the time and he used that to get me to do things, as well as use pictures I’d sent him and his access to my stuff to threaten me. Wasn’t a good time in my life, I dare say that I’m now smart enough and have enough self respect to never let something like that happen again but I’m still so ashamed and haven’t told anyone (until now ig).

#51

Back in the 2010’s, when me and a friend at the time who cosplayed were trolling Omegle during a sleepover for laughs, someone there almost correctly guessed the city I lived in with some kinda tool he was using. He was technically still wrong, but it was only like aprovince or two of my country over. like, I COULD’VE GONE TO THAT CITY HE GUESSED BY TRAIN.

Like, back then, doxing was not as popular yet, and we hadn’t told him anything identifying during the chat at all. Nor had we posted anything remotely identifying on social media on that one. So it was TERRFYING. 😬.

#52

I used to go on chat rooms in the early 00s I was very young like 11-12 and I used to talk to people a lot. This one guy was really odd and I can’t remember what I did but I pissed him off so he somehow hacked my hotmail account and found out my postcode and address and everything and kept posting it in the chat room. Nothing else happened and eventually MSN chat rooms got closed down.

#53

Not really an “online” thing, but regarding a friend I had made online. I played MMOs with this person for nearly a decade. We were great friends. I had the occasion to travel across the country and decided that paying a visit would be a good idea. Save on a hotel and meet my friend in person. It did not go well.

Apparently, they were the only thing stopping the interdimensional Ananke (spelling?) from taking over the middle east in an effort to find the lost Library of Alexandria and the lost knowledge of the world gates which would give them access to teleport circles or something to that effect. It was unhinged. They were (obviously according to them) something akin to the Sorcerer Supreme (like in Marvel comics), tasked with saving the world from supernatural threats.

I did not stay long. Leaving, I was told that I should watch my back as they had many powerful friends in the military, and by showing up, I was now on a watch list.

You just never know what kind of person you’re going to meet. Haven’t talked to them in years. I sincerely hope they are doing alright and have found some form of help… or at least stopped the invasion.

#54

In the early 2000s when i was a kid, i used to spend alot of time in MSN chatrooms when it was a thing, 11/f/aus you know how it goes. I’d add random people to MSN, and most convos were harmless. But there was this one guy who seemed normal at first but then started getting super creepy. He was weirdly into gore, had dead bodies as his display pics, would send disturbing images, and talk in way too much detail about violent stuff and things he wanted to do, sent a few weird photos of holding knives that seemed like he took them. Eventually, he started asking for pics of me too, wouldn’t be surprised if he was a straight up serial k**ler.

#55

Not me but back in University my housemate was friends with this beautiful French girl that looked like a legit model (she seemed really nice and sweet too). She had a stalker that would pester her online and through phone calls. He had multiple blogs about her, some were B**M related others were ads for sexual activities. He would always find her no matter how hard she tried to change phone numbers or change social media accounts. You could literally find only these gross blogs when googling her name, it ruined her whole digital existence.

He would also email the whole uni department about her, sometimes he’d send intimate pics he made of her, which got her in her professor’s offices quite often. She was being warned to make it stop or drop out.

Everyone started to avoid her because whoever befriended her for a long time ended up with their full name on a list on the blogs, which showed up on Google.

It looked like a really stressful thing to go through and no one could offer any help, there’s just nothing anyone could do. Actually, people started to blame her. Even her parents believed it was her fault as they thought it’s a boyfriend who wanted revenge or something like that.

Don’t know what ended up happening since I had to move out, but I felt for the girl. It was a stressful and isolating experience.

#56

When I was a kid someone who had been talking to me for months who I thought was my friend suddenly flipped out and said a bunch of f****d up s**t and sent me pics where she had cut herself deep, really freaked me out.

#57

Back in 1999, when the internet was inhabited by good natured people and the dangers weren’t widely known, my 14 yo cousin went to meet a guy she met online(Yahoo messenger). She was super excited to meet the kid but didn’t tell her parents because she was supposed to be babysitting.
I(also 14 years old) told my uncle(her dad) in a very fortunate moment of clarity and he got there as soon as the 23 year old grown a*s man showed up.

Also- my username was xxx_moon_baby. After a Godsmack song, with no idea what xxx meant. So yeah. Don’t be stupid y’all.

#58

When I was 11, I ended up in a gaming Discord server with some dudes who were supposedly 1-2 years older than me.
There was this kid named Vince who, after knowing me for about 10 minutes and right after learning my age, sent me a link to gay p**n.
It was kinda funny at the time, but the older I get the more I realize how creepy that was. I told him to leave me alone and blocked him but that was not enough because we were in the same servers and he started bullying me aplarently.

#59

Dead threats from other kids at school.
Was already s******l there so those aimed at me I didn’t care much about but then they started threatening to t*****e my pets.

They’ll never know how lucky they are that my parents, both hunters, don’t keep gun and ammo together and that I’d be worried my parents would be disappointed with me.

Because they already made my life hell but I wasn’t about to let them touch the only thing in my life that gave me a shred of happiness.

#60

I got a chat notification and it was from my partner at work letting me know he’d figured out my Reddit username.

#61

I got hacked. Back in the days of MSN messenger and the dial up tone that still haunts my memories. My PC was hacked, full on matrix coding falling down my screen, black screen, then a blank text boy with someone then trying to have a standard conversation  with me. I was terrified. I switched my computer off at the mains and hid under my bed. I was 14, maybe 15? 

It’s wild to think people grow up with this tech now!

#62

Was talking s**t to a guy on Xbox 360, GoW2 days.

He then said my full home address out loud to me in voice chat. Zip code and everything, I was probably 13. I immediately turned my Xbox off and lived in a state of constant panic for a month afterwards.

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